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The Five Most Unnecessary Candy Concoctions Of All Time

Everyone likes candy, as it often proves to be a valuable asset when trying to harness the energy to get your fat ass from one meal to the next. But of course, not all of our convenience/grocery store options are of high quality, and choosing a bad snack can be outright depressing.

But sometimes when dealing with candy, sight can prove to be as strong a depressant as taste. There’s always at least that one brand you see that just baffles you. Candies you can’t comprehend anyone with an ounce of free will choosing to buy. Candies whose boxes are always filled to the brim, because why even bother adjusting for the expiration date?

This is my “tribute” to what I feel are the five candies most deserving of the scornful comments above. The five I look at and think “life’s too short.”

5. Wild Cherry M&M’s

You know that side-splitting joke about the guy who was so dumb he got fired from the M&M’s factory for throwing out the W’s? Well, if there every deserved to be anyone lower than him on the company totem pole, it would be the clown who elected to release this abomination, which tastes like a mixture of potpourri and gum you’ve been dragging around on the bottom of your shoe for three days, to the public.

I could complain more but I already reviewed these earlier this year so in the interest of saving space, click here if you truly desire to learn more about a product you should bend over backwards to avoid.

4. Zagnut

I’ll admit right off the bat I hate coconut so this peanut butter/coconut hybrid never really had a chance to win me over. That said, have you ever seen what these bars look like?

via Candy Addict

At best that looks like a gas station hash brown. At worst it looks like heavily compacted sawdust, neither of which I would eat for any sum of money.

And with a zany name like Zagnut, it doesn’t open itself up to be enjoyed so much as being used for punny purposes. For instance, say your Aunt Shirley gets you one as a stocking stuffer and says “a Zagnut for our family nut.” A joke made all the better three years later when said Aunt refers to you as Scott, even though she’s had 17 years to learn your name is Clay, thus proving herself not to be the most trustworthy judge of mental stability.

Ultimately, the Zagnut people should have taken a cue from the makers of Whatchamacallit. They knew their bar sucked and had a dumb name, but they at least had the foresight to write catchy theme song as a preventative measure from every making it on a bottom-feeding blogger’s worst-of list.

4. Zero

At his high school graduation party, Josh Longest actually said to me “Cunningham, I have no idea why I asked you to come.” Minutes later when he opened my gift, a Zero bar, I like to think he read that as my way of indicating I too was tepid to the invite.

Ignoring the eye-opening fact this leathery and unpleasant combo of white fudge, caramel and almond nougat has apparently been around since 1920, is there anyone who would be upset if it simply disappeared? Better yet, would anyone notice?

Seriously, how is it possible to positively promote a product called Zero? Even if the name reflected its calorie or fat count (it doesn’t, though it apparently does contain 0 grams of dietary fiber), being a zero is about as low as low gets.

It’s almost as if the product was meant to be a joke, and they settled on this name after they realized it was impossible to even conceive a positive spin to be put on the name “Inconsequential,” which, let’s face it, is what this bar is.

2. Skor

I have approximately seven years experience as both a grocery and service station clerk (surefire resume padding if ever I’ve heard it), and not once did I ever witness anyone purchasing Skor even though I know every store I worked at sold them. The fact that I purchased one before writing this is the only confirmation I have that one has ever been sold in the continental United States.

As is the case with Zagnut, there weren’t particularly high odds I was going to like this bar as I’ve never been much for toffee. But even by that lackluster standard this bar is awful. It has a burnt and unpleasant taste, almost like eating a piece of tree bark. Come to think of it, I’ve eaten tree bark (I’m not a freak, it was for a yearbook promotional video) and there wasn’t anything I tasted in Skor to make it leap out as the superior of the two.

And even if it weren’t truly awful, is there honestly anyone who would look at the Skor wrapper and think it looked appetizing? Seriously, look at it:

It’s like being subjected to the seduction attempts of someone without a shred of self-confidence. Seeing those insides peaking out from the bar is the candy equivalent of hearing someone say “well, to be honest I’d enjoy fucking you, but even I would be a bit sad to realize you hated yourself that much.”

If anyone can make that pickup line work, there must be something drastically wrong the way I deliver it.

1. Sweethearts

While I have given numerical values to all the items on this list, as far as rankings go, 2-5 are more-or-less interchangeable. That said, let there be no doubt which of these unnecessary creations is in fact the absolute worst piece of candy ever created.

A lot has been made by the perpetually lonely over the years about how Valentine’s Day is a “greeting card holiday” created to make them feel like “crap.” Well if ever there were a product that made a strong case for that school of thought, it’s Sweethearts, February 14th’s cruelest joke.

Seriously, if you were in love with someone, what on Earth could possibly make you subject them to these heart-shaped tablets of chalk passing themselves off as candy? Sure we cynics have fought back against the holiday with products such as this amusingly flippant can koozie…

…but ultimately it’s a lost cause, as we’re generally either left with nothing, or a gift of Sweethearts; either a pity gift from an out-of-touch relative (more on that below) or a cruel joke from someone who essentially simply doesn’t have the courage to say “I want you to die.”

Try not feeling pathetic when the holiday roles around as all your friends are out on dates, while you sit alone in your college dorm room with no seasonal mementos other than a bag of this crap accompanied by an animal pun card sent to you by your grandma. Sorry grams, I’m afraid I take little solace in being a “Chimply Amazing Grandson” on this day.

If it weren’t for a delightful Futurama satire , I would have no problem calling Sweethearts the worst creation ever subjected to the masses. If you say you actually like how this crap tastes, you’re lying and you fucking know it!

Many people over the years have said they want to abolish Valentine’s Day, and while the holiday itself doesn’t enrage me, if it meant the end of the repulsive tradition of passing this garbage around, then by all means make it go away!

Well, that’s all for my list. If you are interested in a previous post which I essentially ripped off, check out Andrew Majors’ thoroughly entertaining take on The Five Worst Halloween Treats. Even though my act of plagiarism didn’t occur to me until long after I started, I’d feel awful for not acknowledging my poor edict.

13 Responses to “The Five Most Unnecessary Candy Concoctions Of All Time”

Man, I never realized so many people had my last name. I guess the Cunninghams have really propagated all over the country (I don’t even know if we all originate from the same clan).
Anywho, I never liked cherry flavored candy myself, but know a couple of people that would eat anything cherry flavored. I haven’t heard of most of these, but everyone has to know what the terrible tarts known as the sweethearts are… and the only time I ingest chalk-like substances is to treat heartburn and indigestion. I would never purposefully treat my teeth to an unpleasant torturous experience such as those again!

Yeah it’s always nice to know there’s someone else out there whose endured through as many Happy Days inspired insults as I have.
Also, the fact you haven’t heard of most of these makes me feel justified in saying they are unnecessary. And after having tried them for the first time before writing this, I am more convinced than ever they need to go.

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Everyview and David Roshinski, David Roshinski. David Roshinski said: RT @Everyview: Check out our list of the five most unnecessary candies ever created http://www.doesithitthespot.com/?p=172 […]

[…] really beat up on Hershey’s products recently, as their products made up three of my Five Most Unnecessary Candy Concoctions List, which may have created the false impression that I hate everything they produce. To combat this, I […]